


Dead Inside

by Phantomgirl17



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15156179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomgirl17/pseuds/Phantomgirl17
Summary: Maddie has the entire lab set up with a plan to catch and get answers from the town's "superhero" ghost teen. But when things start to go Maddie's way, who will have the better half of Maddie's deal, her or the ghost boy?





	Dead Inside

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hey! First fanfic so I'm a bit nervous. This is just a quick one-shot I ended up thinking of while doing school work and finally bothered to type. Anyways, I'm hoping to get more work up soon when some of my current ideas are finalized and such. I am always open to comments, suggestions, ideas, recommendations, and thoughts on how I could make my work better. Also, unfortunately, I do NOT, I repeat, do NOT own "Danny Phantom" all rights to respective owners. If I owned it, it would still be on today. But get to reading, and hopefully, enjoy!
> 
> -Phantomgirl17

Everything was set in place. Maddie looked proudly at her work cleaning the lab since Danny had never gotten around to doing his chores. She grinned broadly and walked over to her personal desk to begin working on her own, hopefully, more successful, project. As she sat down, she heard a small ding from the Fenton Ghost Portal.

A slight groan accompanied the sound she had just heard, and she assumed it had been the creature coming from behind the doors to the Ghost Zone that made the noise. She quickly turned to see what ghost it was that was emerging from the Fenton Portal they had worked so hard to build but had only worked after Danny took a look at it a few days later.

The young ghost boy that was supposedly the hero of the town slowly floated into the lab and landed on his feet with a soft thud against the floor. His chest was covered with deep cuts that were welling with ectoplasm, while his arms, legs, and even a few spots on his face were scabbed over. Maddie knew ghosts could recover quickly, especially compared to humans, but the cuts on his chest would still take more than a night to heal with how severe they appeared to be.

The fact that he was weak and still bleeding gave her strong will to capture him, to dissect him, to gain knowledge and answers from him. But quickly those thoughts were pushed out of her head as she noticed him staring at her in fear, his creepy green eyes wide in terror. He looked like a deer looking into the headlights of a car. Quickly and quietly he picked himself up off the floor and began to phase through the ceiling of the lab. It was late at night and most of the family would be getting ready for bed if they weren’t already asleep. Maddie almost reached out to stop him and to tell him to wait but held herself back. He would be back. She could feel it.

Quietly, she walked to the portal and locked it tightly so no more ghosts could come through it that night and interrupt her work. Normally, the portal was quiet, and this was the first time she had personally seen a ghost come through it. They had always just known it was where the ghosts emerged from when they entered the human world. She then walked back to her desk and instead of making a new weapon, she began making a plan. She would have that ghost boy caught and the answers she had wanted for so much time in a couple days.

At dinner the next night, everyone but Danny seemed excited that Maddie had made plans to catch a ghost. Jazz seemed excited, but after hearing what ghost would be caught, her excitement lessened and she seemed nervous. Jack, on the other hand, was ecstatic. His mind leapt with excitement and joy and he was over the top happy with getting to know everything about the ghost boy. Jazz rolled her eyes and excused herself to eat dinner in her room while studying. Maddie began noticing when Danny didn't eat any of his food and was just playing with it. He finally sighed and excused himself to go and do his homework.

When he got up to leave, Maddie noticed that there was white gauze peeking out from around the collar of his shirt and his shirt kept bunching up around what appeared to be bandage wrapping around him. He kept trying to pull his shirt down so that it wouldn’t gather in the area of his bandaging. He was also limping on his left foot when he slowly walked up the stairs, cringing at every step. After about half an hour and cleaning up the kitchen, she went to talk to him about it.

“Danny? Sweetie? May I ask why you're limping? Or why you didn't eat dinner?”

She decided to leave the bandages out of the picture. She figured it was from Dash being violent with him again. He probably got cut on a locker door. That seemed to happen a ton, and Maddie had begun letting it go when Mr. Lancer couldn’t manage to solve the problem. She just figured it was high school, and that nothing was seriously wrong.

“What? I… uhh… it's nothing. I tripped at school and twisted my ankle, so it hurts to walk on it. And I went out with Sam and Tucker after school today for food, so I wasn't really hungry is all.”

He gave off a slight half smile and Maddie figured that was enough. Danny didn't generally lie to her unless it was about detention. She would never understand teenage boys. They never made sense to her, not even when she was a teenager and was dating them herself. Jack was so dreamy back in those days, and he was still a sweetheart now. She loved him to the ends of the Earth and would make sure this ghost boy was caught just to keep him safe.

But speaking of boys…

She and Jack waited in the lab for the ghost boy to show up the next evening. They had told the kids to stay in their rooms since they didn't want their kids being hurt by the ghost boy. Of course, neither one objected, so all she got to hear while waiting was the cold silence of the lab, and Jack's excited breathing every so often. It was past two in the morning when something finally happened. The beginning of her plan was to observe what the ghost boy did, and not get noticed this time so she could see his normal behavior.

The ghost boy had flown down the stairs with a nervous look on his face and with his arms clutched close to his chest. His head turned in her direction when Maddie quickly shifted to see what was going on while remaining hidden. She hoped he hadn’t noticed anything and that she had been quiet enough. When he shrugged off his fear, he landed and started to walk towards the portal. Maddie could hear the soft tapping of his boots on the floor as he walked with extreme caution, most likely due to their last encounter. Finally, he sighed and slowly pulled his arms down until they met his sides.

Maddie had only barely noticed that he had been holding something in his right hand, and that it was what he had been tightly cradling to his upper body. Looking closer, she saw it was a Fenton Thermos that he had. His hands shook as he lowered it to be emptied back into the ghost zone. Maddie heard him whisper to himself.

“See ya later, you old spooks.”

He grinned at his statement. His face looked tired as he began to float off the ground. He hovered in place for a moment and thought out loud.

“Well, Skulker seemed to be the last of them. Time for some sleep at last.”

He phases through the ceiling just like before, and the two adult Fentons gazed in awe at what they had seen. There was a ghost boy who had a Fenton Thermos that worked, and he was using the portal to empty it? How could anyone believe that? Maddie finalized her plans and smiled in a way that the ghost boy would have found evil. The next night Maddie's plan would be finished and the ghost boy would be caught.

As the next night approached, she gave the kids the same instructions at dinner. They were to stay in their rooms until the next morning unless it was a bathroom emergency. Danny rolled his eyes and made a comment about her sounding like a teacher. She grinned at this. His joking made him seem more like himself than the night before, and this time when he left from the dinner table to do homework, it looked like the bandages around his chest were gone. Jazz quietly shook her head to the orders while she read a book, and Danny shrugged at them and muttered something about “eh, why not? I don’t have anything to do tonight”. They both walked up to their rooms and closed the doors. Now that Maddie had that settled she made her way to the lab.

A few chemicals were set up on the lab table that was non-flammable, and after mixing them properly, she had made her poison. Jack had assembled a small “cage” around the entire lab. The ghost could get in, but not out of the area. He had even assembled it properly, and Maddie found herself impressed as well as proud. This only reminded her of what she still had to protect from the ghost they were trying to catch.

Silence dragged on for hour after hour while they waited for the ghost boy to show up. Maddie stretched her arms and yawned while Jack dozed off for about an hour. It was around one in the morning this time when a faint glow showed the ghost boy's appearance in the basement. At the sight of it, they were both jolted awake. Keeping perfectly still, they watched for a moment so that everything would be perfectly timed.

“Of all nights you could have attacked my home, it had to be tonight, didn't it, Youngblood?”

The ghost sighed as he once again emptied the thermos into the portal. This time, however, Maddie was ready for him.

As he began to phase through the ceiling and fly off, he received a painful electric shock. Maddie heard a blood-curdling cry of pain and a loud, crashing thud as he fell to the floor. He rubbed at the side of his head as he sat up from where he landed.

“Wha… what was that?”

Maddie almost heard tears of pain coming from his voice as he asked the question to nobody since he hadn’t seen that her and Jack were in the lab with him. It was then to act. She signaled to Jack, and pushing the thoughts of guilt from hurting him out of her mind, they jumped out at the young ghost.

“Freeze, Ghost Kid!”

He looked more shocked than afraid at their attack.

“You're officially trapped,” Jack bellowed, “one way in, no way out.”

He beamed at his creation and Maddie almost complimented him to make him feel even better. But she had a ghost on her hands to deal with, and that would be done before making her husband even more proud of himself. That could be done anytime. But this was her only shot at getting answers from the ghost boy, or, “Danny Phantom” as the rest of the town called him.

“Now,” she started, “we want answers. Otherwise, we will have to use this.”

She held up a spray bottle filled with liquid. It looked to probably be about an 8 oz bottle to the ghost boy and it was almost full. Three-quarters full of liquid at the least.

“You're going to have to use air freshener? I didn't think ghosts smelled that bad.”

He stood up and brushed the dust from the lab off of his jumpsuit as he insulted Maddie's invention. He didn't even know what it did and yet he had to be quick-witted about it. One more thing she despised of this ghost in particular.

“No. This solution, when sprayed, will destroy every ghost in an enclosed area.”

Maddie grinned as a horrified look slowly began to cross his face. It was her turn to make a rude comment.

“Care to talk now?”

The smug grin he had been wearing just seconds before was still becoming a face that looked more horrified by the second, and his face was almost green from how much he looked like he was going to be sick.

“You… you don't know what you would be doing if you used that here.”

He stuttered and took a few clumsy steps backward before tripping over some boxes and falling onto his back. He propped himself up on his elbows as Maddie walked closer. She had ordered Jack to stay a few steps back. He didn’t need to be hurt. She watched as the ghost boy bent his knees upwards and put his feet flat on the floor. He pulled himself up higher and was mostly on his lower back, his elbows keeping him upwards to see them staring back at him.

Maddie grinned as she picked up the bottle of her poison once again, and he grew paler just from seeing her touch it.

“I'm only going to ask nicely a couple times. No answers and I spray this. Got it?”

He gulped nervously and a small nod came from his head. Not much, but just enough to let her know that he understood.

“Good. I'll start with an easy question.” Maddie looked into his eyes. “Where are you from?”

He tilted his head towards his chest and tried to avoid eye contact. But he still gave an answer. He softly muttered his answer so that only she could hear him.

“Amity Park.”

Her mouth began to open, but she quickly shut it remembering how he had said this was his home not too long before then. That didn’t make sense to her. He was nothing but a dead being, his home should have been the Ghost Zone that he was always sending other ghosts back into. She stared at him while deciding what to do next and while doing so finally got a close up look at him.

He couldn't have been older than 14 years old, and his eyes still held a soft child-like gaze. His face had the same soft curve as Danny and Jazz, and his jawline and chin had sharp turns to justify where they were located on his face. He looked familiar, like somebody she was close with, but she didn't know who. She found him to be a rather cute child. Shaking this from her mind she picked her next question.

“What is it you do, and why are you in our lab so much?”

“I fight ghosts. The evil ones that come here after they escape from the Ghost Zone. I only come to your lab because it's the only constant portal I can use to send them back into their realm.”

He looked ashamed of his answer, but Maddie couldn't figure out why. She did notice that he said it was their realm and not his as well. Could that have been what he was ashamed of? Was he banished from the Ghost Zone? More questions flooded her mind, but there was one thing Maddie had to know before asking any of these questions.

Although she didn’t really believe that these were true answers, she let it slide and asked what she had been dying to know since the ghost boy had first shown up in town.

“Well then. Now that we’ve cleared that up, I'm going to ask you something a bit more personal. You must have some secret way to keep from being found… so, who are you?”

The only answer she got was a sharp inhale from him. She heard it as a gasp of surprise at her question. Quietly she frowned in anger to his answer of nothing but a shocked gasp. She was going to get her answers. Her tone sharpened and she decided to try asking again.

“I ask you once again, Ghost Child. Who. Are. You?”

His look of shame returned and a look of pain joined it, along with the tears welling in his eyes.

“I can't tell you. You wouldn't want to know… I'm sorry…”

Maddie looked down at the crying, young ghost boy with anger. Her voice filled with anger as she requested a different answer.

“I'll give you one more chance to answer my question. Who are you!?”

She yelled at him and more tears flowed from his eyes as he screamed back at her,

“I SAID I COULDN'T TELL YOU!”

Tears hitting the floor and his sniffling was the only thing to be heard for several long moments after he said that. But finally, Maddie felt herself snap inside. She had to have answers.

“Then you leave me no choice.”

She held up the spray bottle and saw the ghost boy shaking.

“Please, stop. Mo… Maddie, please. You don't know what you're doing… that will give you an answer, but it will also give you a loss. Once you spray that, go talk to Sam Manson and Tucker Foley. They know everything about me.”

“Sam? Tucker? But what about our son? He is best friends with those two and the three of them never part. Why shouldn't we talk to him instead?”

“Trust me. He knows just as much as they do. But they know everything about me and more. I just don't think you'll be able to talk to your son. Just please… don't hurt me.”

But his last statement was too late. Maddie had let three sprays of her poison hit the air, and was pulling the trigger on the bottle again. The ghost boy's hand flew to his head to cradle it because of a headache that had hit as fast as light could have traveled.

“What is this doing to me?”

His voice was slurred and he sounded tired and almost like he had a concussion as he sat there.

“Deteriorating your DNA compositions.”

As Maddie answered him he became even more nervous and even more pale than he already was, seeing as he was dead.

“Then I guess this is goodbye, Maddie, seeing as you just killed me.”

He laid himself back and flattened his body to the ground. His green eyes stared upward, but Maddie watched as the neon color of his irises faded to a cool, icy blue. His eyes wouldn’t close and an eerie feeling washed over Maddie seeing his eyes fade to blue and lose all the “life” they had been holding. They lost their shine, and Jack walked closer to watch as well. Maddie knelt down beside him on one knee.

Both of them stared in awe and shock as his bright white hair began fading to a raven black, as dark as night, and the small glow around his body burnt out like a candle. Slowly, his suit peeled away from his body to reveal what was underneath. The suit turned to nothing as soon as it left the skin behind it, but underneath was what caught Maddie's attention. A plain, white T-shirt with red accents around the sleeves and the collar appeared, and where the ghost boy's logo had been a simple red oval appeared in the center of the chest of the shirt. Light blue jeans followed, alongside a simple pair of sneakers to replace what had been the lower half of his suit and his white boots.

Tears filled Maddie's eyes as she saw her son laying on the floor before her. She couldn't believe it, and the boy wouldn't wake up. No heartbeat, and he wasn't breathing. In shock, and thinking it was all just a sick joke, she madly dashed up to Danny's room. Model rockets and NASA posters littered the room and the walls around it, but Danny was nowhere to be found. Sprinting down the hall to Jazz's room, she cried out to Danny’s older sister,

“Jasmine, where's your brother!?”

Mostly in fear of the truth. Jazz knew their plan since she had found the blueprints and notes for it that morning. She had tried to warn Danny, but he wouldn’t listen. All she remembered was him saying to her,

“Jazz, I have to go out tonight. If I don’t save the town, who will? It’s better if only I get hurt rather than everyone in the city. Besides, Mom and Dad almost never make anything that actually works.”

Jazz thought about all he had said to her that morning, how much he had grown up when he got his powers and began using them to become a hero and save the day all the time. She was so proud of him, and how much he had done. She listened as her mom called for her, and slowly she walked out of her room, silently crying.

“You need to go talk to Sam and Tucker in the morning.”

Maddie fell to her knees crying in front of Jazz’s door and felt Jazz give her a pat on the back to try and comfort her. Come daylight, she was talking to her son's two best friends. They explained everything to her. How Danny had become half ghost, that he had been good, everything he did to protect the town… they even told her how each event happened and what Danny's role in it was. Vlad was mentioned as Plasmius a few times as well.

After hearing this, Maddie could only cry harder over the son she lost. All thanks to her not listening. All thanks to her not paying attention. How similar the two of them had been was scary. The bad jokes, their looks, how often Danny was wrapped in bandages for days or was injured alongside how often the ghost boy was wounded and unable to heal himself in just a night. She should have figured out who he was, that her son was fighting ghosts all that time. She thought she had always been one of the smarter people in the family, but she couldn’t even figure out her own son was half ghost. As she went to bed that night, her eyes puffy and red from all her tears, a note from Danny was found by her bed. It read,

“I told Jazz that if it ever came to me being gone, to never seeing each other again, whether it was because I was captured or because I was killed, to give you this. I couldn't tell you who I was - whether I was in ghost form or human - because I knew you would either not believe me and try to destroy me more than usual, or you would be too afraid for my safety to let me keep trying to protect the town. I'm sorry for lying to you for so long. I did this out of the protection of all of us. I still love you,

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom”

He signed with his logo and it caused more tears to fall from both her and Jack’s eyes that evening.

Not one night came where she didn’t reread that letter over and over again and hope that her son would just be a complete ghost from here on out. That she could see him again and apologize. But he never came back. The ghost boy was nowhere to be seen in Amity Park, and Sam and Tucker hadn’t found him in the Ghost Zone either. Maddie was crushed beyond measure, and couldn’t stop blaming herself, no matter how many people told her it wasn’t her fault.

The funeral was about a week later after his body had been preserved and put into his favorite suit. Most of the town had even showed up, hearing that their hero was now gone forever. After he was laid into the Earth, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all threw a handful of dirt in over him. Maddie placed a single white rose over his grave after the workers of the cemetery had completely filled his grave. Everyone but the three who had known his secret walked away with tears in their eyes.

The three of them stood by his grave and stared at the rose. The rose began to glow a soft green that almost matched the color of Danny’s eyes and ectoplasmic powers in his ghost form, and their hopes rose that he wasn't really dead. But seeing it fade back to a pure white and seeing Skulker float by, happily laughing at Danny's defeat and the cruel hoax he had just played upon the three, made their hearts crack. Sam took a large stick and drew his logo into the dirt that had just been placed upon him. She never got to admit her true feelings of love towards him, and in leaving his mark in the dirt above him, she felt she was admitting her feelings to him alongside honoring him. They slowly walked away, leaving Danny's logo engraved in the dirt above him as well as in the stone showing where he now rested forever.


End file.
